


a particular type of hat

by natlet



Category: White Collar
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 07:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14971616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natlet/pseuds/natlet
Summary: Cape Verde; before, during, and after.(technically a missing scene fic, 3x16 through 4x03)





	a particular type of hat

Their plane takes off a little after four fifteen. Peter watches out the window as Cape Verde disappears into the ocean behind them, a bad memory in green and gold and bright white stucco. Next to him Neal is slumped in his seat, leg stretched out into the aisle. No tracker on his ankle, but he's still wearing Collins' cuffs, and there's a faint rust-colored stain growing on his thigh - he must have opened that wound up again somewhere between Macleish's party and the airport. He's going to want those pants replaced, Peter thinks. He won't ask right away, but someday he'll ask, and Peter will do it, no matter how hard Neal might try to make it sound like a joke. A pair of pants is a small price to pay for what Peter's regained. Maybe he'll replace the whole outfit. Maybe he'll do it before Neal can even ask. 

Across the aisle, Collins is focused on Macleish, who's feigning sleep and ignoring him. Peter nudges Neal gently, nodding toward the cuffs. "You can take those off whenever," he says, low; and Neal gives him a little smile, shrugs the cuffs from his wrists to his palms and sets them neatly on Peter's thigh. "Sorry. Didn't want to spook our friend there if you got on without them." 

"Door was still open," Neal says. "I get it."

"You won't be wearing them again for a long time." Neal's wrists look red and irritated under the pale blue cuffs of his shirt and Peter's trying not to stare but maybe he does. A little, anyway. Neal rolls his head to the side and clears his throat and Peter takes a breath, drags his gaze back up to Neal's face. "How's the leg?" Peter whispers. He doesn't mean to; it's just how his voice comes out, low and hushed and a little tense.

"Hurts," Neal whispers back. "How's the career?" 

Peter huffs out a soft laugh. Gone, he wants to say. Or - it's not what matters. Or - so now you care? Instead he says: "I don't know yet. Hughes isn't taking my calls." 

Neal nods, and doesn't say he's sorry. Peter's glad for it. It's not that Neal doesn't have anything to be sorry for. It's just easier if neither one of them expects him to be. "You think he won't hold up his end of the deal?" 

"He's probably just at lunch," Peter says, and Neal gives him a look. "I think I might be out of his hands at this point." 

"You don't think that," Neal says. "You know that." 

Peter shrugs. 

"Peter." 

"He - may have said he couldn't protect me. If I came after you." 

"Peter," Neal says again, and his eyes are dark and sad and a little scared. "Why did you?" 

"I had to," Peter says. "If Collins got to you first - " 

"The call was enough, I knew he was coming, we were already - " 

"It's my fault," Peter says, but it comes out as more of a hiss and Neal's carefully blank expression wavers and Peter feels his gut drop like the plane's banking, though outside the window the horizon is level and steady and still. "I was looking for you, I had the goddamn map, I - he found you through me. If you went back to prison because I was careless, because I gave you up - " 

"You'd feel responsible," Neal says, and Peter knows him well enough to hear, you'd never forgive yourself. 

"I am responsible for you, Neal. Did you forget? That was the deal." 

Between one breath and the next Neal's face changes and Peter remembers the second time he caught him, just before all of this; that soft open look and those bright raw eyes in the back of a car and he'd asked Neal, did you really think she'd be here, and Neal had said, no, but I really hoped she would. "No, Peter," Neal says, here in the echoing cave of the cabin, the low drone of the engine and Macleish pretending to snore through his poorly-reconstructed nose across the aisle. "I didn't forget." 

"Then why the hell are you still asking me that?" 

Neal shrugs a little, turns his head the other way, and Peter gets by now that it's the wrong goddamn answer but he doesn't know what other one Neal expects him to have. It had been good enough for Mozzie. He wishes Neal would just tell him what he wants to hear. 

He won't, though, so Peter says, "We'll be in Tenerife in a couple hours. It'll take a few days for the extradition paperwork to come through, but once we land, we'll find someone to take a look at your leg." 

Neal doesn't say anything; Neal doesn't even look at him, and more than a little, Peter wants to ask what he'd said wrong. If all this hadn't counted for anything, didn't get him any credit with Neal, hadn't proved - but Collins is distracted, not oblivious, and Peter's not sure asking is worth the risk that he might overhear. The less he has to say to Collins from here on out, the better, even if all he has to say is _fuck off_. Neal can stay angry for now, if he wants; Peter closes his eyes, leans his head against the wall of the plane. He'll have time to handle it later. They're on their way home.

*

"He told me you'd be by," June says when she answers the door, her voice low and warm and sad. She's wearing a gold locket on a long chain, and she keeps pausing to touch it, her hand fluttering across her chest as she unlocks the gate and swings it open. "Please, Peter, come inside." 

She hugs him before he can decide whether or not it would be okay to hug her, and it's a near thing - a couple quick shaking breaths in her arms, his eyes squeezed shut, jacket drawn tight across his trembling shoulders - but her shirt is silk and flowing and Peter can just imagine what Neal would say if he put a run in it clinging to her (Neal, Jesus, _Neal_ ), so he forces himself steady, opens his eyes, lets her go. "June," he says. "The - the US Marshals, they're gonna come by, they're gonna want to search the house - " 

"They've already been here," June says. "Don't worry. He was long gone. I told them I didn't know anything, and they can come back when they have a fucking warrant." She steers him gently toward the stairs and Peter starts up them ahead of her, one foot in front of the other. He lives in New York; he climbs a lot of stairs. The three flights up to Neal's apartment are usually nothing. He takes them two at a time some days, when he's feeling good, when they've got a new case or the wind is just right. Today it feels like going up a rope ladder. He can't get control of his knees. 

At the top of the stairs June unlocks the door, leaves it for Peter to open. "If you're leaving, lock up on your way out," she says. "But if you'd like, you're welcome to stay. Any time you want." 

"I might wait for them," Peter says. "They'll - want to question you, I'm sorry. They're gonna try to treat it as a crime scene for a while." 

June shrugs. "After that, then," she says, and smiles. "I'll be downstairs. Stay as long as you'd like." 

"Thank you, June," Peter says, and hugs her again, and waits until she's reached the next landing before he turns the doorknob and lets himself inside. 

It smells like him. 

Less than two hours, of course it does - it shouldn't be a surprise but Peter reels with it, his breath swelling in his chest, his head spinning and light. There are half-finished sketches on the easels. The lamps are still on. Neal's favorite little hidden places stand open, the windows ajar, there's dishes in the sink - the bed is made, but hastily, white sheets and a bright-colored throw spread out across the mattress, and Peter sits himself down on the edge, hides his face in his hands, digging his fingers hard into the corners of his eyes. He's probably sat in a hundred rooms Neal isn't in, wondering where the hell he is, and if they'll ever catch up to him. He shouldn't feel like such a stranger to this. 

There's a pair of heavy wire clippers on the shelf by the bed. Neal's anklet is beeping on the table. 

He can't fall apart, he thinks. Not yet. Neal still needs him. 

Peter stands up, nudges Neal's hidden wall compartment closed with his elbow - the Marshals will find it, but that doesn't mean he has to make it easy for them. He gets a clean glass from the cupboard and the corkscrew from its drawer, picks a bottle from the wine rack, and sits down with Neal's anklet to wait. 

*

A few hours before sunrise, Peter leaves Mozzie asleep in a camp chair on the deck of Lorenzo's boat and goes to pace the dock. It's risky - he should be keeping as low a profile as possible, following Mozzie's lead maybe, sunglasses and a hat over his face - but he can't sleep, and there might be an hour of relative quiet between the cargo boats and the fishermen, and if he doesn't do something other than just _sit_ there he's going to lose his mind. 

Neal should have been here by now. Neal should have been here hours ago. Even if he'd holed up somewhere, Peter doesn't see a reason for him to have stayed much past dark; as long as he'd made it out of town he should've had no problem finding a way out to the wharf. This is Neal's thing. This is what he's good at. There's no real reason to worry yet, Peter knows that, but - he should've been here by now. 

Lorenzo's boat is moored near the end of the dock; at the end of his next loop Peter finds Mozzie waiting for him, looking out across the cove, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders rolled back like this is going to be any ordinary sunrise.

"Something's wrong, Moz," Peter says, coming to a stop next to him. "I can feel it." 

"Yeah, that feeling is called remorse."

Peter decides he's going to ignore that. "I think Neal's in trouble," he says. "I should go after him - " 

"You going after him is the reason he's in trouble in the first place," Mozzie says, and Peter's about to agree with him when Mozzie adds, "He couldn't walk away from you." 

Peter pauses. He hadn't considered that angle. "He's done it before," he says, stalling, because he can't believe Mozzie, even though it makes sense - after all, he hadn't really found Neal, had he? Neal had found him. 

"That was different." 

"How?" 

"That was before you changed him," Mozzie says, which is goddamned ridiculous and for a single, blissful moment Peter lets himself imagine shoving Moz right off the end of the dock. 

"Really? Running from the law, paying children to - to steal people's wallets - look around you, Moz. Look at how you've been living. I don't think I changed him all that much." 

"Point taken," Mozzie says, grudgingly, after a second. "But on the other hand, it's worth considering that the Neal I've always known would have told Hector to run in the opposite direction." 

Which - okay. "Point taken." Mozzie's making an effort here - Peter can give him at least that much. "I'm just trying to help him," he says. 

Mozzie looks him over, close and long and careful. "I know," he says. "Maybe you should stop." 

Peter thinks: maybe he should. Whatever he's doing down here, it sure doesn't seem to be helping. Out loud he says: "Two hours to sunrise, right? Give or take." 

"We'll give it three," Mozzie says, and Peter decides to take it as the peace offering he hopes it is. "The fishing boats will be leaving before dawn. Make sure you don't get in the way." 

It's longer than he wants to wait before going after Neal, but he can live with it. It's been six weeks. Another few hours won't matter much now. "Thanks, Mozzie," Peter says. "I'll be over in a little bit." Mozzie nods and turns away, back toward Lorenzo's boat; Peter slips his hands in his pockets, and doesn't watch him go. The moon is sitting low over the water, reflection stretching out over the ripples in shifting little bursts of light; in the shadows underneath the dock, Peter thinks he might see fish. 

*

"...So we went to the meeting, and it turns out the President really _is_ king of the lizard people." El sets Peter's mug down in front of him, turns back to the stove to flip the bacon. "Isn't that wild?" 

"That's great, hon. What did Yvonne think?" Peter picks up his coffee, blows carefully across the surface, then blinks and sets it back down. He says, "Oh." 

El moves the cast-iron griddle off the heat, comes to sit across from Peter at the table. "It's okay, hon," she says, reaching out to curl her hand around his. "It's only been a couple days. Give yourself some time." 

"I'm okay," Peter says, but she looks at him like she's not going to let him get away with that. "It - had to be done," he adds, and she rubs her thumb across his wrist, gentle and encouraging. "I know that." 

"Well, yeah, but that doesn't mean you can't have feelings about it." 

He looks at her, and doesn't know what to say. So far, it's seemed like that's exactly what Neal being gone means. Forget about him, Hughes had said, and the office had gone ahead and done just that. Nobody comes within arm's reach of Neal's desk. They all skirt around Peter at the coffee machine, like he's got a disease and they think it might be catching. The only way he's handling it is by not having any feelings about it at all - by ignoring the ache in his throat and putting one foot in front of the other, going one breath to the next, minute after agonizing minute like these are any ordinary days. "I miss him, El," he says, because she's his wife, and if anyone's going to understand it's going to be her. Because even if she doesn't, he has to say it to someone, and she's safest. "This all seems so - hollow, now. Without him here." 

El thinks, carefully and obviously, about what she's going to say. "Our life seems hollow to you?" she settles on, and her voice is light and calm but Peter knows her well enough to hear underneath that, where it's small and raw and sad. His gut twists - this isn't fair. He can have feelings about Neal being gone. But maybe he shouldn't have that one. 

"No," he says, "I'm - sorry, El. That's not what I mean," even though that's exactly what he means - the way his coffee tastes like nothing, how there's no life anymore in the trees, this nagging sense that maybe it's all just made out of paint and cardboard and string. "I just - Neal was - " 

"He was your friend and your partner, and you miss him," she says, picking up where he drops off, and it's not - not that, it isn't just that, he's got an immediate urge to say _yeah but,_ though he doesn't even know what else he'd add - it's not that, not exactly, but he nods and looks away and El squeezes his hand. 

She'll leave it there, if he wants to. If he'll let them. They can mourn Neal's absence together - she'll be patient with his moods, and he'll eat extra eggs in the morning until she stops cooking for three - and someday it will all become just a story, something they talk about with the neighbors, white wine out on the patio on warm summer evenings, _honey you remember when you worked with that con man?_ Neal will become what he always should have been; a page in Peter's file, a particularly well-solved case, a felon who, in the end, turned out to be just a felon after all. And Peter can go back to that, too. What he always should have been. 

But Elizabeth is his wife, as much as he's her husband. When he doesn't say anything she squeezes his hand again then lets him go, slipping back around the kitchen island to get the bacon, still sizzling faintly over on the stove. He watches her over the top of his newspaper - hair tumbling down her back, the sun through the window glinting off her earring, how she snags the arts section as she sits down - and thinks, _God, I would marry her all over again today._ He couldn't give up his life with her for anything - not for anything. He's known for years now he'll make it, as long as he has that. 

"So if you were looking for him," El says, though - and it's so casual, the way she says it, stuffing half a piece of bacon into her mouth, flopping open her part of the paper like she's suggesting they pick up takeout for dinner. "I know you're not, but. If you were. Where would you think he might've gone?" 

He doesn't know what to say to that, for a second - just looks at her, stupid and lost, mind blank - and then she winks at him. Elizabeth - his wife, his beautiful, brilliant, _amazingly perfect_ wife - winks at him, and smiles.

And Peter smiles back.

*

Peter guns the car backward up the narrow lane, pulls a sharp K-turn at the top of the hill, follows Neal's directions through the densely-packed city, out onto somewhat quieter roads that must lead to one of the island's ports. He keeps half an eye on the rearview, but Collins' Jeep is nowhere in sight; with a little luck Mozzie won't be far behind them, and with a little more they'll all be safely out of reach before Collins even figures out where they've gone. Well - relatively safely. He chances a look over his shoulder; Neal is curled on his side, both hands clutching at his thigh, shoulders heaving as he breathes and Peter makes himself turn back toward the road, before he panics too and kills them both. "You okay back there?" he says, voice raised to carry over the sound of the wind. 

"Fine," Neal yells back, but his voice is strained and a second later he says, "You think we can pull over for a minute? This is bleeding pretty bad." 

Peter checks the road behind them one last time - no Collins - then pulls the car over, parks on the shoulder before he lets himself turn back to Neal. 

"Mozzie's gonna kill me," Neal says, and he's smiling but there's blood all over his hands and smeared across the car's baby blue interior and for a second Peter thinks he's going to throw up. 

"Neal, Jesus - " 

"I'm fine," Neal says - his voice is too firm and his eyes are too bright but Peter shuts up anyway - this is Neal's game, not his. "Just - open the door for me, there should be some water in here somewhere - " 

Peter gets out to open the door, and Neal slides down to let his leg hang out of the car while Peter goes around to find the water bottle he'd heard rolling around under the front seat. When he comes back, Neal has the gauze on his leg peeled back, and Peter's stomach turns over again - he's so goddamn tired he can't even think, and Neal's thigh is a mess of blood and raw flesh and big messy stitches and he shouldn't have come here, he's only made everything worse for Neal, he never should have - 

"Peter. _Peter._ " He looks, and Neal gives him another smile, small and warm and real. "If you were this worried, you could've found me before he shot me. Come here, give me a hand with this." 

"I did find you before he shot you. You just ran off on me again." Peter kneels on the loose sandy shoulder of the road, pours the water over Neal's leg while Neal gently rubs away the blood, checking the edges of the wound. "I can't believe he shot you." 

Neal shrugs. "You can't tell me you haven't thought about it." He plucks the water bottle from Peter's hand, pours the rest of it over the gauze, rinsing it as well as he can. Peter sits back on his heels, elbows on his thighs. 

"Well yeah," he says. "But." He can't figure out how to say I think about a lot of things I'd never actually do without it coming out wrong. Like it's a dig at Neal, some sort of criticism or judgement and that's the last goddamn thing Peter wants to do right now, so he just stops there. 

"But?" says Neal, though, chucking the empty water bottle into Mozzie's front seat, and Peter sighs. 

"But I know how you hate guns," he says, and he has to look away as he stands, focus on keeping his footing; when he turns back Neal has his leg covered up again, the stain on the gauze a little less intense, his hands mostly clean. "I probably would've stabbed you instead." 

Neal laughs, hauling himself backward into the car, avoiding the stains on poor Mozzie's seats. Peter swings the door shut behind him, goes back around to the driver's seat, glances over his shoulder to make sure Neal's settled - he's still grinning, and he softens when Peter meets his eyes, amusement shifting into something a little warmer. "All set?" Peter says. 

"Yeah. The wharf is only a couple more miles. Fuck, I hope he's got a first aid kit on that yacht." Peter nods and turns away, starting the car, but behind him, Neal must lean forward - "So now you're three and oh," he says, right next to Peter's ear, and Peter can't help startling a little. Neal has his arms folded on the back of the seat, his head resting on his elbows, smiling up at Peter like maybe this isn't Neal's game, like maybe it's both of theirs. 

"Now I'm three and oh." Peter glances over his other shoulder before he pulls back onto the road; there's not even another car in sight. Mozzie better be on his way. "Though you did sort of turn yourself in. Hector seems like a nice kid."

"He's a lot of fun," Neal says. "I got bored waiting for you to show up. Thought it was gonna take you forever to find me this time." 

"Oh, come on. Six weeks isn't too bad."

"Yeah, but last time you found me in what, sixteen hours? And this time you needed a nine year old kid's help. I think you're losing your touch." 

Peter snorts. "Okay, Frank. Let's get you out of here before we worry too much about who's catching who." 

"Could still be Collins catching all of us." Neal pauses, and Peter half wants to hold his breath. "How'd he find me, Peter?" 

"I screwed up," Peter says, without thinking - and it's true, this entire thing has been one long screw-up on his part, maybe all the way back to when he'd sprung Neal from prison, but he'd sort of wanted to say it in a way that sounded less - malicious. Neal's trust in Peter seems shaky enough right now without giving him any more reasons to question it. On the other hand, if he wants honesty, maybe the best thing to do is offer his own in return. Start off things between them right, this time. "I recorded the call. Jones and Diana helped me figure it out. I had this - map, of all the places I thought you might be, and I circled Cape Verde and Collins already thought I was hiding something so he searched my house and he found it." It sounds even more desperately stupid when he hears himself say it. The chance of seeing Neal again had just seemed - he'd been so goddamn selfish. "I'm sorry, Neal. I shouldn't have done it. I should have just let you go." 

"Yeah, you should've," Neal says. He's quiet for a second, but when Peter looks in the rearview he's still nearby, staring forward out the windshield with a weird, soft expression on his face. "You found me off one ninety second phone call?" 

Peter shrugs. "There was a little more to it than that," he says, and he can't quite smile - he'll smile when they're safe - but Neal doesn't sound angry, which is already better than he'd expected. "But yeah. Pretty close."

"Not bad," Neal says, and nudges Peter's shoulder with one elbow. "I take it back. Maybe you're not losing your touch." 

"Yeah," Peter says, and he takes it back, too - turns out, he can smile. "Maybe not." 

*

So - Robert Macleish. That's a surprise. 

"We can regroup at our villa," Mozzie says, and Peter thinks he's being a smartass until they get back in the car and Mozzie drives them along rutted mud roads to an enormous, beautiful, honest to God villa, tucked incongruously at the end of what looks like some sort of deer trail, sweeping down through the forest to the white sand beach and the sea beyond. 

"Unreal," Peter says, looking at it, hands on his hips as Mozzie helps Neal out of the car. "Un-fucking-real. Hey Moz, how do you keep that car so clean?" There's not a speck of dirt on it, besides Neal's blood. It doesn't seem fair. Guy steals a priceless lost treasure out from under the FBI's nose, disappears beyond the law's reach, scores an incredible dream house in paradise. There should at least be a little mud on his mint-condition classic fucking car. 

"Mindfulness," Mozzie says, and for a minute, Peter has to hold his breath. If he starts laughing now, he's not sure he's going to be able to stop. "Suit. Hello? Can you come hold up Neal? I need both thumbs for the door."

Staying put still doesn't sound like the best idea Peter's ever heard, not with Collins and half the goddamn island after them, but he takes a look around after he gets a call in to Hughes and the house does seem secure enough - the only weak point is the beach, Mozzie insists, and from the right vantage point one person can see far enough in either direction to get a warning off in plenty of time. Peter isn't exactly convinced that's the winning argument in favor that Mozzie seems to think it is, but it's not like he has a better plan, and by the time they hear back from Hughes Neal is starting to look a little ragged - not just by Neal standards but by Peter standards, which means as far as Neal's concerned death is right around the corner. So they need to him cleaned up, and rested, and possibly drunk - Peter's been shot before, he knows what that leg must feel like, no matter how hard Neal tries to pretend it's nothing, and they're going to need him at full strength if they're going to find a way to get all of them home.

Peter can still barely believe it's true - any of it. That he's found Neal. That he's found _Rob Macleish_. That in forty-eight hours he'll be on his way home, and Neal will be with him, and neither of them will be facing jail time - and all they have to do to make it happen is find a way for Neal to capture the FBI's number one most wanted fugitive. 

It's not even the worst idea they've ever come up with. 

At least, Peter doesn't think; Hughes hadn't sounded like he liked it, but he's tolerating it, which is better than Peter had let himself hope for. And he'd seen the way Neal's eyes lit up when Hughes said they could try. 

By sunset, Peter's starting to flag a little. Neal and Mozzie are still going strong, picking apart and refining and running over and over through their plan for crashing Macleish's party, but between the heat and his sleepless night last night and the way Mozzie keeps dumping vodka into the iced tea pitcher when he thinks nobody's looking, Peter can barely keep up with them, let alone help them. They've still got a few hours of work in them, so Neal volunteers for first watch, and Mozzie takes second; that'll leave Peter with sunrise, responsible for all of them while they're slow and vulnerable, blinking in the new light. At least he can get a few hours of sleep first. 

"You'll have to get it in the hammock," Mozzie says. "We don't usually have the sort of guests who need their own beds." 

"Oh, I doubt you have any sort of guests at all," Peter tells him - it's a cheap shot, and he knows Neal and El both love the guy, but he's had just a little more Mozzie in the past day and a half than he can really handle. 

"Okay, guys," Neal says, leaning forward to cut them off, and he's not laughing but Peter can tell from his eyes that he could get him to if he really tried. "Peter, you can take my bed. We need you well-rested, and if you try to sleep in that hammock, you're gonna regret it." 

He should protest, maybe - a hammock on the patio at Neal and Mozzie's beautiful island villa wouldn't be the worst place Peter's ever slept, though he can admit it would probably leave something to be desired in the comfort department - but Neal's bed is an enticing enough alternative that he keeps his mouth shut. He washes up in a turquoise glass basin, changes his clothes, crawls into Neal's impossibly soft brown sheets, and closes his eyes. 

The next time he opens them the room is dark, the house still and silent, no signs of life besides Neal, much closer than Peter's expecting, climbing onto the bed next to him. 

"Hey," Neal whispers, stretching out on his side, head propped up on one hand. "Don't get up. Mozzie's gonna pull a double." 

"Tell him thanks for me." He sort of feels like he should get up, but Neal had said don't, so Peter doesn't. Neal's bed is big and soft and way too comfortable, and Peter's too tired to think any further ahead than that. 

"I did. He said you didn't sleep last night." 

"You were supposed to meet us there after dark." 

Neal grins. "Before sunrise," he says. "You could've relaxed for a little while. Moz did." 

"Mozzie thought you were already dead." 

"He prepares for the worst. Says he likes to be pleasantly surprised." Peter arches an eyebrow, and after a second Neal's grin falters, then fades. "It wasn't even close, Peter. I'm fine."

"He _shot_ you."

"Just a little. And to be fair, I was trying to escape." 

"Good. He - " Peter says - then surprises himself with an enormous yawn, his back arching, body stretching out on the bed without asking him if it's okay first and when his muscles relax he finds Neal watching him with that look on his face, the one Peter's never quite figured out how to read. He's not really sure he should finish, anymore, but Neal will ask. So. "He doesn't deserve to catch you." 

Neal smiles at him again - smaller, softer, no teeth. "Yeah, I guess that's still a pretty exclusive club, huh." He slides down to rest his head on the pillow and Peter rolls onto his side, turning to face him. It's the first chance he's had to look at Neal, slow down and really look at him, and he's so - Peter can't find the words for it. Neal looks like a fascinating new case, like Mozzie's car, like the sun setting behind home plate. He looks like something Peter wants to get his hands on. His hair is longer, bleached light by the sun and curling in the sea air, and Peter wants to reach out, brush it back off his forehead, run his thumb along the line of stubble hugging Neal's jaw. 

"Yeah," he says. He's three thousand miles from home. He's in Neal's bed. He might as well. "Just me." 

"Just you," Neal agrees, his voice quiet and warm. He brings one hand up to tuck under his head, long fingers curling against his cheek. There's little specks of blue paint stuck in the creases of his knuckles, and Peter wonders what he'd been working on. He'd seen the easels scattered around Neal's half of the villa, but the canvases had been missing - in anticipation of Collins' arrival, probably. He wonders if there'd been anything Neal had wished he could save. 

"So what did you say at my hearing?" Neal says, and it's the jet lag - that, and he's only slept maybe four hours out of the past thirty-six, that's not helping either - but it takes Peter an embarrassingly long time to catch up. 

"Your hearing?" 

Neal shrugs. "Gotta start somewhere." 

"Neal, I - that was six weeks ago. It doesn't matter." 

"Yeah, it does," Neal says, "It matters to me," and the smile drops away and Peter sees the Neal he'd been so afraid to come here and find in the first place, the one he'd been met with those first fragile seconds at the top of the tower. The one who makes him wonder if he's ever really found Neal Caffrey at all. "Peter, you're on vacation but the FBI still considers me a fugitive. You want me to go back to New York, and I want that too, but I have a right to know what you think." 

"Okay," Peter says, and his voice is low and gentle and calm, like the nights where he comes home too late and trips over Satchmo on the landing on the way to bed. He's never sure which one of them is more startled. "I - I said that I thought your sentence should be commuted." 

"That's a brave choice. Considering." 

"They were gonna question me anyway," Peter says. "Might as well give them something to ask about."

One corner of Neal's mouth quirks upward. 

"I told them that you had a good life in New York," Peter says - and Neal's heard most of this, from him, from El, from Jones and Diana, but that doesn't mean Peter can't say it again. Or that Neal doesn't need to hear it again. "That you had a home, and a job, and people who cared about you, and that if we - if we kept treating you like a criminal, you'd keep acting like one." 

"You think that was before or after I cut my anklet and fled the country?" 

Peter grins. "About the same time," he says, and Neal gives him a fleeting, tiny grin in return. "I told them that I thought you had a good heart," Peter adds, softer. "And that you should be free." 

"Thank you," Neal says, and Peter nods. He still means it - maybe even more, now that he's here to bring Neal home again. He'd thought about this - hoped for it - sitting in that emptied-out conference room facing Neal's parole board, swearing he'd changed and waiting for the call that would prove he hadn't. Neal suntanned and laughing, wrapped in silk sheets, Morocco or the Philippines or anywhere, as long as it wasn't with Kramer, as long as he was free. And now, seeing him like this - Peter still doesn't think he'd been wrong, telling Neal to run. He'd wanted what was best for Neal. For both of them. But - maybe he'd been wrong about what was best. 

"You sure you want to go back?" he says, even though he doesn't want to - because he doesn't want to. Because as much as he hates to admit it, Mozzie may be right - he came all the way here without asking. He should at least see how Neal feels about it. 

"The Bureau knows I'm here," says Neal. "I don't think I really have a choice." 

Peter shrugs into the pillow, and tries not to feel relieved yet. "You could, I don't know, disappear into the night while I'm sleeping," he says. "I'm on leave, and you're not on an anklet. Nobody would have to know." 

Neal doesn't answer right away. He jams his hand up under his pillow, holds Peter's gaze, steady and calm and overwhelmingly close. Outside, faintly, Peter can hear the ocean; the wind in the banana trees, and the waves on the sand, and the long gauzy curtains whispering across the villa's tile floor. He wonders if this is what it had been like the night Neal had called, and they'd spoken for what could have been the last time. He wonders if they're going to hear the bells. "She calls me New York," Neal says, soft, after a minute. "Maya does. The girl at the cafe. I, ah - guess I kinda talked about it a lot, when we first got here." 

That's sort of a surprise. Neal changes identities like a hermit crab changing shells. Reinvention, Peter had told Collins, but it's more of a rebirth - it's why it had taken Peter so long to catch him, the first time. A new identity is a whole new person, no trace of the old left behind. "That doesn't sound like the James Maine I expected." 

"No, it doesn't." Neal huffs out a little laugh, looks away; Peter lets him go, doesn't echo his smile, even though seeing it on Neal's face sparks something bright and excited in his chest, just like always. He doesn't want Neal to think he's laughing at him, for any of this. "I - I made her this - sculpted sandcastle city, modeled after the Manhattan skyline."

Peter arches his eyebrows. "A sandcastle city?" 

"Yeah, it - I set it up at the high tide line, you should've seen it, it was cool." Neal smiles again - softer, smaller, but right at Peter this time, and this time, Peter can't stop himself from smiling back. "I said I didn't want to run any more, and I meant it. I still mean it. I want to go home, Peter. With you." 

"Okay," Peter says - he's using the Satchmo voice again, and he's not too proud to admit it's just for him this time. Neal's smile is half hidden in the pillow; his hair's in his face and Peter wants to see his eyes and he's not thinking, he's past thinking now, he just - reaches out, strokes his thumb gently across Neal's forehead, tucking that lock of hair back into place behind his ear. "We'll get you home, Neal. I'll find a way." 

It's a stupid, sentimental move, and Neal's going to say something about it - for a second Peter's sure he's going to say something about it; he looks at Peter like the question is right there between his teeth - but he just sort of shifts upward a little, turns his head, pressing his stubbled jaw into Peter's palm. "I know you will," he says, low and warm and serious, and Peter thinks, _God, maybe I should_ \- "We should get some sleep," Neal adds, though, that grin still dancing around his mouth like he knows what Peter's thinking, but - okay, Peter thinks. He's not wrong.

"Yeah." Peter pulls his hand back, rolls onto his other side - it's harder than he thinks it's going to be, breaking from Neal's gaze, but that's just proof he's making the right choice. They really should get some sleep. He can look at Neal all he wants once he gets him back to New York. "See you in the morning," he says, half to hear what Neal's going to say back. 

Behind him he can hear Neal shifting, settling into the bed. "See you in the morning, Peter," Neal says, and Peter can hear the smile still there in his voice, and he believes him. 

*

It's not that they tell each other everything, because they don't. It's that they tell each other the truth. 

"It'll probably cost me my job, El," Peter says - three in the morning, out on the patio, each of them with a steaming mug of chamomile tea - he'd tried so hard not to wake her, but Satchmo had other plans. "Hughes said he couldn't protect me, but I think what he meant was he knows I'll go down." 

El frowns. "You think OPR still has someone looking into you?" 

"No, I don't think so," Peter says. "But I haven't exactly been employee of the month lately, and Hughes has stuck his neck out for me more than once over this." 

"Well, you knew this was a possibility when you told Neal to go," El says. "And maybe leaving the FBI wouldn't be the worst thing for you. Are you even happy there any more?" 

"No." Satchmo trots over with his ball and Peter slings it across the patio for him, watches him chase it into a corner and flop down on top of it, panting happily. "Not really." 

"Then what have you got to lose?" she says, and when he looks at her, she shrugs. "It's just a job."

"Yeah," he says, and then, "It is, without him there." 

"So that's your answer, then, right?" 

She says it like they're talking about the crossword puzzle or what they want for dinner, something clean and simple and everyday. Her mug had been a gift from a client; it's printed with a spray of pink and white flowers and reads, _Wedding Planner: because Badass Miracle Worker isn't an official job title._ Honestly, Peter disagrees. "Yeah, I guess so," he says, and she reaches across the table, palm up. 

"We can deal with you losing your job, hon," Elizabeth says, when he takes her hand. "It won't be easy, we'll have to make some changes, but we can deal with it. What we can't deal with is you, like this." 

Peter nods, and she squeezes his hand, and he doesn't know what to say to her. He knows. He never should have brought this on her, on them. "I'm sorry," he starts with, but cuts himself off; should have is one thing, but that doesn't mean if he did it again he would choose differently. "El, how do I make this right?" 

"That other agent, Collins. You think he can catch Neal?" 

"Yeah," Peter says - softly, and even though he doesn't want to. 

El nods, lips pursed together, that mind-made-up look in her eye. "That son of a bitch was in my house, Peter," she says. "He's done enough damage to this family. Screw him, and Hughes. I think you should do whatever you have to do to find Neal first." 

He curls his fingers into hers, feels her rub her thumb across his knuckles, the edge of her nail catching on his wedding ring. "And what about when I find him?" 

"You do what you have to do then, too," she says. "Just - come home to me. Both of you. We'll figure out the rest from there." 

It's never seemed real before. It was one thing to talk about it, almost twelve years ago now - the chance that this might come up, that one of them might meet someone who made them wonder if maybe there was something more. He'd never looked at it as a slight against her or his love for her, and neither had Elizabeth; and, granted, they'd been young, and occasionally they'd been high, and it's not that he hadn't believed her, it's just that he'd thought maybe she'd expected it to stay hypothetical. Then again - he hadn't exactly expected Neal, either. "I love you," Peter says, and El smiles at him, comes around the table to press a kiss to his forehead. 

"I love you, too, hon. You want to make more tea? I'll get the laptop and pull your bag out of the closet. If you're gonna beat him there, we've got to get you on a flight." 

*

Bartender training, it turns out, really takes it out of you. Or maybe that's just trying to keep up with Mozzie and Neal. Or maybe it's the heat. Peter's not sure. 

Whatever it is, after a day of arts and crafts and crimes and alcohol, everyone decides some decent rest is more important than the probably small chance that Collins will get the jump on them overnight. To compromise with their consciences, they drag Mozzie's bed - it's just a futon pad with some pillows and a sheet thrown across it - from his side of the house into the library, where he'll be within earshot, and then Neal's guiding Peter back down the hall, a hand in the small of his back like this is something they do every day.

"You ready to be our front man?" Neal says, once they're alone, slipping past Peter just inside the doorway to his room.

Peter's drunk, and Neal's got his back turned, so it seems like a good idea to say, "I don't know." He sits down heavily on the edge of Neal's bed to slip off his shoes. "I'm gonna - I think I'm gonna fuck it up." 

"No you're not," Neal says, from the other side of the room. He's changed into light linen pants, pulling a shirt down over his head when Peter looks, and he's - he's so goddamn beautiful. The long swooping river of his spine cast in shadows across tanned skin, flowing into the dip at his waist, over the sharp cut of his hips. "You're gonna do great. Don't worry about it." Safely clothed again, Neal comes back around to Peter's side of the - the side of the bed Peter's sitting on - snagging a bottle of wine off a table Peter hadn't even noticed was there on his way, and sits down next to him. "It's bad luck to worry about it," he adds, leaning heavy into Peter with one shoulder, nudging the wine bottle against his thigh. 

"If you think I'm drinking any more you're crazy," Peter says, and Neal giggles, pops the cork out with his teeth, takes a long swallow from the bottle himself instead. "If I drink any more, I'm - " He interrupts himself with an enormous hiccup, which Neal doesn't say anything about - and sure, it's because he's got his mouth full of wine, but one of the more important parts of having Neal in his life has always been understanding that sometimes you've got to appreciate the end for what it is, in spite of the means. So. "I'm definitely gonna fuck it up. I have no idea what I'm doing, I'm not a - a big con guy." 

"Jesus, Peter. No, here, you absolutely need to drink more." 

Peter puts the bottle to his lips, and drinks until Neal stops glaring at him. It's been a long day, and it's a nice change after all that gin, and - well. It's not hurting.

"You're gonna do great," Neal says, taking the bottle back when he's apparently decided Peter's finished. "You mixed your way through half of Maya's stockroom today. Your drinks are - " He waves a hand sort of vaguely between them. " - obviously fine. And you're, like, way better at conning people than you used to be." 

"It's not funny, Neal, this is important," Peter says, and Neal arches his eyebrows and mutters _and that's why you need to drink more,_ which Peter is definitely not going to acknowledge. "If I blow this for us, we're going to be wishing we were only in prison."

"And if you don't, everything's forgiven and we all get to go home and live happily ever after," says Neal. He shoves the bottle into Peter's hands again, then flops backward onto the bed, arms folded up under his head. "Seriously, Peter. You gotta relax." 

Peter fumbles around in the sheets, looking for the cork; gives up after a second and leans over to set the bottle on the bedside table. He folds his hands in his lap and says, "I'm just saying, this all goes a lot easier if you and Mozzie aren't involved." 

Behind him, Neal snorts. "How do you figure?" 

"I talk to Collins," Peter says, and closes his eyes - if he turns around and looks at Neal, he doesn't think he'll be able to keep talking. "Offer him Macleish. It'll buy you some time, get him off your tail, if he doesn't forget about you entirely. And once I'm back in New York I can find a way to, I don't know, get you a pardon or something - " 

"Peter - hey, _stop_ \- " 

He feels Neal's fingers close in the hem of his shirt and he's - a little unbalanced, is all, he moves a little too quickly, turns around to look at Neal and ends up lying on the bed next to him, head still spinning a little from the fall. 

"What are you talking about? I want to be involved, I want to come back," Neal says, his voice low and too serious and his eyes too bright, his breath quick and sharp across Peter's skin and Peter half wants to hold his own, like it'll stop him from feeling the heat of it. "Peter, we talked about this."

"I know," Peter says, and then he says, "Maya seems like a nice girl," and he hates being drunk, he really does, and this is exactly why. He likes to figure out the answers before he tells everyone else, not do both at the same time. He rides it out again - that strange feeling swooping through his chest, same as before, when he'd seen them kissing. It's a coward's move, not naming it, even to himself - Peter knows that. But he's never claimed to be brave. 

"Yeah, I owe her a lot. What are you trying to say?" 

Peter says, "You deserve this, Neal," and to him, that's the core of it; the part he'd had to come all the way here to tell him. "You - should be happy, you should have someone you love to share your life with, someone who loves you. You should be making copies of the Mona Lisa and spending all day drinking cocktails on the beach, and if you come back to New York with me all you're gonna get is a tracking anklet and a hundred assholes like Kramer trying to step on your goddamn head." 

"So, what, all this, and now you think I should stay here?" Neal's just looking at him, his voice level, his expression unreadable and Peter's feeling more and more like he's fucking this up before they even get to the con part, but he's already come this far with it - might as well. 

"Yeah," he says, tries his best to make it sound firm and certain and true. He doesn't feel drunk any more, and more than a little, he wishes he did. "You said you were happy here, Neal. I want that for you." 

Neal doesn't say anything for what feels like a long time, and it's - strange, stranger than it should be, when Peter knows damn well he should be used to it. Neal tells him practically nothing, so he's always been better at hearing what Neal's not saying than what he is - even when he's silent he's never really _silent_. Not to Peter, anyway. Every shift and glance and twitch of muscle whispers in Peter's ear. He'd tracked Neal down through his voice on the phone line, the waves on the beach and the sound of Spanish brass, but now - on Neal's bed, inches between them - he feels like he can't hear Neal at all.

"Hang on," Neal says, and for a second, Peter is sure he really has heard Neal wrong. "I want to show you something." 

"What? Neal, don't - you're supposed to be resting your leg." He's already up, though, and Peter watches him limp around the bed to a big steamer trunk sitting against the wall. 

"I am. In a minute. I want you to see this." 

He comes back with a fat three-ring binder, and Peter's sure it can't be what it looks like, until Neal sits down next to him again, sets it in his lap, and it's exactly what it looks like - baseball cards, probably thousands of them, each neatly tucked in its own plastic sleeve. "I didn't know you were a collector," Peter says, looking over a few sheets - pretty standard, one card to a sleeve, nine sleeves to each. He doesn't know much about baseball cards, but they're all in good condition and he spots a few he'd guess were valuable, if he were guessing. "Or is this your next big scheme?" 

"It's not a scheme," Neal says, quietly. "Keep going. More toward the back." Peter glances at him, but he's got his gaze fixed firmly on the binder; Peter turns back to it too, keeps flipping pages until Neal reaches out, his fingers on the edge of a sheet, murmurs, "Here." 

He spots it immediately - his own rookie card - and feels the rest of it click into place in the next breath. "They're all rookie cards," he says, checking another couple sheets just to make sure - but he's right, and he turns back to his own card, tucked inconspicuously in a bottom corner.

"So I guess it is kind of a scheme," Neal says, and Peter feels him shrug. 

"You bought a whole - " 

"Yeah." 

"Just so you could have - " 

"Yeah," Neal says, "Peter, this is what I'm trying to tell you, I - all of those things you want for me, I have all that in New York. It's not about the job or the city or the law or - it's you, okay? I told you that. I have someone to share my life with. And I have missed him so goddamn much." 

This time when Peter looks up Neal is looking back, and Peter thinks, it's always been like this with them - he gets lost in the details. Collecting all the little things Neal doesn't mean to give him, like he's still building a profile, Neal's eye color and shoe size and the type of brim he prefers on his hats. Like how he takes his coffee could mean more than last night - or this morning, how Peter had felt, waking up next to him in bed. "Neal," he says, "Neal, _Christ_ ," and he reaches for Neal and Neal reaches for him and then they're kissing, hard and hot and desperate, his hand on Neal's thigh, Neal's fingers clenched in the collar of his shirt. "I missed you too," he says against Neal's lips, and Neal makes a low rough sound, his hand slipping around the back of Peter's neck to pull him in again. 

It feels like it goes on forever. Peter wishes it would. He needs time for this - Neal's mouth warm and soft and wet, the wine sweet on his breath, the prick of his stubble against Peter's chin. He kisses just like Peter imagined he would, focused and intense, his fingers dragging along Peter's jaw like he's a sculpture, a work in progress, something Neal can pull out of the clay and Peter moans into Neal's mouth, molds himself against Neal's hands, and can't be completely sure that he isn't. He knows this part of himself, he always has, but before Neal he'd - never. He'd thought he would just leave it there. Tucked down in the silt with the rest of the dark things you think and want and feel but never, ever say. Peter knows what's expected of him; he knows the kind of man they need him to be. But - _it's a security fiber,_ Neal had said to him years ago, standing too close in Kate's deserted apartment, and Peter had caught the spark in his eye and watched the room and the case and the whole world around them come to life. It's the first thing Peter loved about him - that crazy crackling sort of heat. The way he makes anything seem possible, like he can slip clever hands down under the edges of Peter's life, find all those muddy frozen sleeping things and pull them out, warm them up again, bring them closer to the light. Like if he wanted to, he could smile just right, and turn winter into spring. How had Peter thought he could ever live without this? He must have been out of his goddamn mind. 

They're both gasping when they finally break apart and Peter shoves trembling fingers into Neal's hair, keeping him close, suddenly terrified he's going to move away - but it's not for long, he doesn't need to worry - Neal is holding on to him just as hard, his arm slung over Peter's shoulder, pressing little kisses to the corner of his mouth. "Peter," he whispers, "God, Peter, please," and Peter thinks _yes_ and knows he would give Neal anything, _anything_. He groans and tugs Neal closer and Neal whimpers, shifting toward him, his other hand slipping across Peter's lap - then gasps and falls back again, clutching at his leg, and Peter feels his chest go tight. 

"Fuck," he says, "fuck, Neal, I'm sorry," and he doesn't know how to help - it's instinct to reach out, put a hand on Neal's shoulder, and Neal shuts his eyes and takes a few shaky breaths and Peter has to fight the urge to keep going, pull him in, get him closer. "You okay?" he says, cautiously, after a second. 

"Yeah," Neal says, flashes him a quick grin. "I just - pulled my stitches funny, I'm fine." He turns his head and presses a kiss to the side of Peter's wrist, and Peter's heart is still pounding but he can't resist smiling back at Neal. "Guess we'll have to slow this down a little, though. Much as I hate to say it. Sorry." 

"It's okay," Peter says, lets his hand slide around to the back of Neal's neck, lets himself feel his breath catch in his throat as Neal leans in against him. "Here, come on. Let's get you settled." 

It's a lot like last night - except Neal's closer, and now Peter can touch him, can lean across the pillow to kiss the edge of his smile. Still, he's surprised by how familiar it feels. Like nothing between them is really changing at all. Neal's hand on his chest is broader than he's used to, his long fingers spread across more of Peter's skin, but the contact itself is the same. "We should talk about this," Neal says, like he's reading his mind. "Peter, I - care about Elizabeth. I don't want to hurt her." 

"You won't," he says. "This won't. We - we talked about this. We have an agreement." 

"You talked about this?" 

"Yeah," Peter says. "What? Is that so hard to believe?" 

Neal shrugs, shuffling a little closer, and Peter moves instead, so he doesn't have to. "Well, yeah," Neal says, his voice low and rough and a little playful, and Peter runs a hand down his side, wraps his palm around Neal's hip, savoring how Neal's body shivers under his touch. "Can't say I've ever been the talk about it with the wife guy before." 

"Yeah, well." Peter kisses him again, soft, breaks off to mouth along the line of his jaw. "Can't say we've ever met anyone worth talking about before, either." 

He hears Neal gasp, his fingers curling against the back of Peter's head as Peter kisses his ear, his shoulder, the shadowed hollow of his throat. "And - what, you - think I'm worth talking about?" 

"Mmm. Maybe," Peter says, and grins. "I think so. But what do you say we find out?"

*

Really, Peter thinks, they should be happy he's sleeping at all. 

There's nothing to worry about. He's expecting it to be hard, to be painful, for those first days to feel like walking into the fire. But as he goes through them, he finds they're just days. Kramer and OPR can think what they want; there's no proof, nothing to tie Peter to Neal's disappearance, so they can ask him what they want and he doesn't have to lie. No, he hadn't spoken to Neal. No, he had no reason to think Neal may have been planning to run. It feels like a game and he wonders what Neal would say if he saw it, if somehow Peter could show him the tapes. He wonders if Neal would be proud of how much Peter's learned. 

On the second night Neal's gone Peter dreams about being back on the pitcher's mound, not at Yankee Stadium or even the Metrodome but down in Florida at Hammond, sun in his eyes and grit in his glove and the palm trees over the left field fence. Spring training, day nine - the first day he'd felt strong and confident and like maybe, just maybe, he'd finally found the place he was always meant to be. Kramer's taken the coach's place on the sidelines with the rest of the rookies, and Neal's on third, and then first, and then he's at Peter's shoulder with a noose around his neck saying Peter, Peter, did you enjoy it? Did you forget?

A man in his line of work has enough nightmares that Peter doesn't wake gasping, doesn't shoot upright in bed. He opens his eyes and stays still in the darkness of his bedroom, breathing slow and steady and shallow through his mouth. El rolls over on her side of the bed, reaches out to smooth a hand across his back, and doesn't say honey, I think you should talk to someone. Platitudes have never been her style, and Peter loves her. Peter loves her so damn much that sometimes he feels like his heart might split in two from trying to hold all of it in one place, like if he breathes wrong his skin's going to crack open and he's going to fall out, fall apart, half of him winging loose and wild into the traffic-warmed breeze that sweeps up Broadway from the river. Sometimes he wishes it would. Sometimes he wonders if it already has. 

*

"You never answered my question," Mozzie says, at the airport. 

Peter glances sideways at him. The beard's not a bad look. Gives the little guy an air of absurd gravity. "Moz - " 

"Peter, Neal is my friend," Mozzie says, and Peter's too stunned by Moz not calling him Suit to defend himself. "Your explanation may have convinced me you feel some sort of - obligation toward him, but I have been left often enough to gather the shattered remains of his heart - " 

"The _shattered remains of his heart_?" 

"It lends appropriate emphasis," he says, his voice hard and serious, but without the lofty baby Hitler clones are valid tone that accompanies the best of his conspiracy theories and other obvious nonsense. "I'm not going to be there to clean up your messes any more. I have a right to be concerned." 

"And your concern is my _intentions_ with him." 

Mozzie looks away, chin to his chest. "You get to him," he tells the tarmac. "There aren't many people who can."

"Oh, like he doesn't get to me," Peter says, and regrets it as soon as he hears it; Mozzie means well. They want the same thing, in the end, even if they've got pretty extremely opposing ideas about how to achieve it. "I care about him," he says, softer. "Moz, you know I'd never hurt him. I want him to be happy, too." 

"That's good to hear, but that still doesn't answer my question." 

He wonders how fine a point Mozzie wants on it. "I intend to protect him," Peter says, since that's easiest, and since insisting Peter comply with his oddly specific phrasing is hardly the weirdest thing Mozzie's ever done. "I intend to - support him, and keep my promises to him, and help him live the life he wants." It's probably enough for Moz; Peter should probably stop there. But if he's going to insist on the truth, he's going to get it, whether he likes it or not. "I think I intend to love him, if he wants that. If he'll let me." 

"I suppose that's what I get for asking," Mozzie says, but he sounds satisfied, and Peter grins. 

"Yeah, it is." He nudges Mozzie, points as the shiny black car rolls into sight. "There's Macleish," he says. "Plan worked."

*

Signalling Neal to run had been an impulse. A crime of passion. 

Peter's testimony is premeditated. 

He means every word of it. Even now. Even more, now.

There are thirty-five missed calls on his cell by the time he leaves the conference room. Thirty-eight when he reaches the elevator. Forty-two by the street - he counts the buzzes in his jacket pocket, one for each step as he goes down the wide staircase. They're probably all the Marshals; Peter doesn't bother checking. He already knows what they have to say. 

Peter walks like he's got somewhere to be, head up, shoulders back, cool air burning in his lungs. People get out of his way. He figures out he's headed for the park when he gets there. The lunch crowd is thick on the benches around the fountain and none of them are Neal and Peter isn't sure he can trust his phone but he fumbles it out of his pocket anyway. He's up to ninety-nine plus missed calls, most with accompanying voicemails, from the Marshals. Fuck the Marshals, he thinks wildly, and dismisses the notification, and dials. 

"El," he says when she picks up, and even he's shocked at how his voice comes out. 

"Oh, honey," she says, and of course she knows, because she knows him. "The Marshals came by, they said Neal cut his anklet, I didn't want to - but it's true, isn't it." 

"Yeah," Peter hears himself say, and that's when it becomes real. None of the people around the fountain are Neal, because Neal is gone; none of them wear his suit or his hat or his smile and from now on none of them ever will and Peter had just about forgotten this - the way living in this city sometimes made you feel so goddamn alone. "Neal ran, El. He's gone." 

El's quiet for a long moment. She's a smart woman. Smarter than Peter is, a lot of the time. "Oh, hon, I'm sorry," she says, finally, and God, Peter wishes she was with him; he should've asked her to wait for him to finish his testimony. He wishes he could hold her hand. "Are you too busy to come home?" 

"Yeah," he says, then, "No," then, "Yeah, I - I probably can't stay long, but I - " 

"Come home, sweetheart," El says, gently. "Let me hug you, and we'll figure out where we go next." 

"Okay," Peter says, and closes his eyes for a second. When he opens them again, Neal's still gone, and he's still in the park, but he's got his wife on the line and he knows the way home. "Okay. I - thank you. I love you." 

"I love you, too, hon," El says. "It's gonna be okay, I promise. I'll see you soon." 

* 

Collins insists on the handcuffs again when they land in Tenerife; Neal accepts them wordlessly, if not willingly, and Peter feels like a traitor for being relieved. It's just until they're out of the public eye; with Neal's end of the deal still sort of up in the air, it's easier than trying to explain to the media why they've got one fugitive in custody, and one fugitive sort of tagging along for the ride. Peter doesn't like it, but that doesn't matter. He's had a lot of practice living with things he doesn't like, lately. One more won't kill him. 

Their hotel is no sprawling private island villa, but by Bureau-provided standards, it's not bad. It's still on an island. And with a little luck they won't be here long, anyway. Once everything starts to settle down - Neal in the shower, Collins and Macleish on the other side of the connecting door - Peter slips away, and goes toward the sea. The water has always been El's thing. He's more of a mountains and forests kind of guy - the giving, layered, rich-smelling earth under his feet, sunlight dappled through leaves, the space between the ground and the low-hanging boughs of trees. Beaches are too open for him to ever really be comfortable. But sometimes being comfortable isn't what he needs. 

The beach isn't deserted, but most people stay near the edge of the waves; the space between the dunes and the high tide line is private enough. Peter takes his shoes off, sits with his toes in the sand and lets his body be the house that he lives in, a shelter, the salt-sharp breeze cool and wet against his cheeks. He breathes in deep, inviting the damp into his lungs. He is quiet. He's alone. 

Neal joins him after a while - Peter isn't sure how long - his hand heavy on Peter's shoulder as he lowers himself gently down to sit. He stretches his leg out in front of him and slips his arm around Peter's waist and Peter leans in against him, because he doesn't know what else to do. He's supposed to have the answers; he's supposed to be the one who can find the key. 

"The thing is," Neal says eventually, "I wasn't going back to prison. You said Kramer wanted to take me to DC."

"So?" 

"So I'm asking the wrong questions, aren't I." 

Peter shrugs. "I guess that depends on what answers you're looking for." 

"Yeah," Neal says. "I guess it does." He's quiet for a minute, then says, very carefully: "What else did Hughes say about coming after me?" 

Peter looks at him, and wonders how they'd got here. Sure, those bonds are still some of the most beautiful things Peter's ever seen, but Neal - he should've been a perp, one of a hundred cases, a gold star on Peter's record, though granted an especially shiny one. He shouldn't be coming up the stairs Monday mornings with coffee to sit in Peter's office and talk case theories, he shouldn't put his feet up on Peter's desk. Peter shouldn't know already what Neal looks like in his house, in his kitchen, having breakfast with his wife. He's chased Neal all over the planet, caught him just to set him free to run again; to protect him, when it never should have mattered in the first place, and that's some of it but not all. He catches Neal when Neal stops running away, starts running toward something, and he'd always thought it was Kate but maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe it was this - the idea of it, the promise - this place where their words are the walls and their bones hold the rafters, where home can be people, and love is a verb. Maybe, Peter thinks, part of him had just wanted to be sure. 

"He told me to get some perspective," Peter says, and adds what he knows now to what he'd known then; the sweet way it aches when Neal kisses him, the taste of salt on his soft suntanned skin, the neat way his hip fits into Peter's hand. "He told me to think about what's important." 

"And so - " 

"And so I decided I had to come get you," he says. Really, it's simple, like truth often is. "You're what's important. I love you. I've loved you for years."

"There you are," Neal says, and leans in to kiss him, his hand resting light on Peter's chest. "God, Peter, I love you too. Just - be real with me, okay? Just like that." 

"Okay," Peter says, and can't stop himself from adding, "You, too," and Neal laughs and kisses him again, slower this time, deep. 

"Okay," he whispers against Peter's mouth. "Deal." 

Peter grins, runs a hand through Neal's hair, presses another soft kiss to his lips. "So what do you think," he murmurs, Neal's breath ghosting warm and quick against his skin. "Do I still make the best deals?" 

Neal laughs again, hugs Peter close, his head pressed tight against the side of Peter's neck. "Yeah, Monty Hall," he says, and Peter laughs too, kisses Neal's hair. "Don't worry. Anklet and all, you still make the best deals." He pulls away, but not far; just enough to nudge at Peter, his eyes bright and happy when Peter meets his gaze. "Come on, help me up. Let's go inside. I think I've had enough sand for a while." 

"Yeah," Peter says, lets go of Neal just long enough to get to his feet, and holds out his hand. "Me too." 

*

Neal takes the picnic area as a personal challenge. Tuesdays and Fridays are for Elizabeth, still and always, cave purgatory or no, but the other three days lunchtime is marked by Neal creeping around the edges of Agent Patterson's formidable reach, all raised eyebrows and bright smile, waving fancy takeout in Peter's direction. Both the carrot and the stick. He brings real silverware, red-checkered tablecloths, a heavy-bottomed pint glass for Peter's root beer. Peter hasn't eaten this well since El's first week hiring caterers, before she'd met Yvonne and her friends who have actual palates. He's got so much to do he shouldn't be taking breaks, and Patterson interrupts them more often than not, but it's worth it - he's determined to take every minute with Neal he can get his hands on, even if some of them are fleeting, even if they have to be spent somewhere that Neal insists on referring to as _the yard._ It's enough that Neal wants to be here, that Neal's letting him in, if only in little bursts; it's still a start. 

Before, Peter would have thought it was just Neal's way of apologizing, and it is; but here on the roof, the sun glinting green and gold off the peeling paint on an antique tractor they'd seized last week, the wind blowing Neal's hair into his eyes - the nudge of his knee against Peter's under the table doesn't say only _I'm sorry, forget it, forgive me._ It also says, _I love you. Be with me. Let's make this world seem light._

And Peter's never really been able to tell him no.

**Author's Note:**

> this one's shelter name was 'the story that eats its own tail' sorry about like how it goes backwards it seemed like a good idea at the time
> 
> [jackie](http://twobrokenwyngs.tumblr.com/) makes these things make sense for me, if it wasn't for her all you'd get is weird frog metaphors


End file.
